OpenSpace DEV: OpenSpace in change and transformation (#25)

The BetaCodex Network is all about organizational transformation: More specifically, about transformation from command-and-control (Alpha) to decentralized and democratic (Beta). So you may wonder why we are dedicating a research paper to a well-known and decades-old large-group meeting, or conferencing method. Why, you might ask yourself, is research on this topic needed? And why does the use of OpenSpace DEV in organizational transformation matter at all? The answer is simple: OpenSpace Technology (OST), or OpenSpace, as we will call it in this paper, can be a powerful enabler of very fast organizational transformation, together with all the willing, all at once. But the commonly practiced forms of OpenSpace are not very well-equipped to be used in the context of organizational change and development work. Instead, a specific form of OpenSpace is possible and helpful that differs significantly from OpenSpace as you have come to know it. That variant of OpenSpace for organizational change work called OpenSpace DEV is the topic of this paper. The authors of this paper assembled and developed it, starting in 2011, and we believe sharing this social technology will make a difference to everyone involved in contemporary organizational development, and to everyone approaching Beta transformation.

There have been several different phases in our use of OpenSpace. One began in 2011, when we started to apply OpenSpace in earnest with our clients in our consulting work, with groups of 100 to 300 people – then mostly groups of managers from client firms. One of the most important deviations from traditional OpenSpace that we took was that we removed session “pitching” at the start of the OpenSpace meeting, having participants generate session proposals online instead, during the weeks running up to the actual meeting. We knew back than that this was a breakthrough, as we were able to raise the meeting’s intensity dramatically, while at the same time shortening the OpenSpace gathering itself. Participants arrived at the meeting very well-prepared, energized for topics and sessions, and in the mood for discourse, right from the start. We took another take on OpenSpace in 2018, when we began to use OpenSpace even more systematically and more consistently in our transformation work with the OpenSpace Beta approach. Here, again, we produced a bunch of concepts.

This research paper presents the 14 concepts that we consider foundational to OpenSpace DEV, and it explains the role of the open source license when using OpenSpace DEV.